Musings upon the motion picture that we call Sleepwalkers

Hunk Charles (Brian (Charmed) Krause), and his Mum Mary, (Alice (Borg Queen) Krige), move to a small town and Charles falls for local cutie Tanya. Unfortunately, Charles and Mary aren't so much people as cat-vampire thingies with appetites which don't go down too well with the locals. Mayhem ensues.

This was the first Stephen King property written exclusively for the screen, I think, and it is not without merit. The story is a bit formulaic, but our monstery protagonists are moderately off the beaten track. There are multiple guest cameos to spot, some decent action, early (and effective) use of CGI morphing, and Alice Krige is as compelling as usual.

Less pleasingly, Mick Garris' direction is as pedestrian as usual, and the whole thing has a TV movie feel to it which, what with it being a theatrical presentation, isn't really what one wants to see.

It's not a bad King movie, but it certainly isn't one of the good ones.

Ok, I'm just going to say this from my own past life experience. If you are a teenager and you are going to go out to the theater with your mother to watch a movie.....this is not the movie you want to go see, just trust me on that. If you've seen the movie you will understand. I think it took both of us a good two years to recover.

As much as I love both Stephen King & Cats, this movie just aged horribly. I liked it when I was a kid but even then, deep down, knew it was kind of cheesy. But it does have some of it's B-Movie charms, it's more funny then scary.

It's not a bad King movie, but it certainly isn't one of the good ones.

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I'm going to have to be disagreeable on this point and say that it is, indeed, a bad movie. But for reasons I cannot fathom I've always kind of liked it. Maybe because that Madchen Amick is one cute chickie boo.

I always liked "Sleepwalkers," but I agree, it is of its time. I do wish King would try to return to one-shot movies again (in a bigger way than he currently has). I've said this before, but come on my friend -- maybe get involved with that Blumhouse Productions outfit and come up with a "Purge," a "Paranormal Activity," an "Insidious;" show the kids how it's done. Here's a title -- "The Incident in Bangor." Take that title, create a plot, spend no more than $5 million on the negative, voila -- capture the attention of the "The Conjuring" crowd, make a lot of money, and let the younger moviegoers know who the real boss of horror is. Wishful thinking, certainly, but I'll tell you, a low-budget horror film set in Bangor, if done in one of those documentary/found-footage sort of ways, could actually feature King in a cameo as himself talking about reports of the incident. That would be fun.

This is an absolute awful movie, but I still like it in some ways. A quote from some critic I read a long time ago about King comes to mind, Something to the effect that "Stephen King could publish his grocery list and it would be a best seller" Now that can be taken many ways depending on the context it was written, Could be a statement of how dedicated King fans are, or a slant on Kings writing abilities, or any number of things. But I mention it in this post because I think if it wasn't for Kings Name being attached to this film and his Cameo appearance, I would dismiss this movie completely and say it sucked and a waste of my time.

Saw it once, when it came out--drive inn double date in my buddy's old Ford Fairmont. My date (cute little blonde that never, never shut up) and I got the front seats while said buddy and his stank up the back. Then it's all, "is that dude doin it with his mom?" and trips to the snack bar for all sorts of junk--little blonde wasn't that little, as I recall. And yak yak yak yak. No funny business, just yak yak yak. Then it's "a freakin CORNCOB in the face?" And steamy windows, cramped, odorous Fairmont, bleh, and yak yak yak...